Got an email from a young man who wants to be a horror writer. On his website, he says: I have a keen interest in writing, but like so many amateur wannabe writer’s out there I have yet to get passed the inquiry letter stage with literary agents or publishers. So instead of leaving my work unread on the PC I have decided to have a bit of fun with it between impersonal ‘No Thank You’ letters and self-publish my work on the Internet.
His name is Steve Merrifield. I have no idea if these two books are worth your while or not. But self-publishing is a growing trend, and like all trends, some of it will be good and take foot, while the rest of it will shrivel up and die. The final say on such matters, of course, is you.
So I’ll leave it to you …
Book Title: Harvest
Craig Digby lives in a high-rise block of flats, one of three towers that make up the Heights estate at the heart of Camden. He is striving to make a life for himself away from a stifling family business and the shadow of his dutiful and successful older brother. It will soon become a struggle for survival. Unbeknownst to the residents of the estate, the construction of the towers and their number were influenced by a long-forgotten landmark. Lightning strikes Craig’s tower and completes a ritual started two-thousand years ago.
Something stirs beneath the tower.
Loving parents find that one of their children has been taken from her room.
The front door is locked. The flat is nine storeys up.
It is only the beginning.
A terrible some-thing has been created. It stalks the corridors and minds of those living in the building. In the days and weeks that follow, more children inexplicably disappear, spontaneous acts of murderous violence break out, and there are mysterious deaths. Craig and a handful of disparate locals realize the true nature of the force that moves among them. They must overcome their personal beliefs, conflicts and fears to unite against an evil that can reach into homes, control minds and corrupt flesh, for they alone realize the true nature of what is happening and only they can stop the Harvest.
Book Title: Ivory
Martin Roberts has made a successful career from painting, but is finding that his creativity is slipping away – stifled by his family life. That is until he is responsible for running a teenage girl down in his car.
Miraculously the girl survives, but stranger than her lack of injuries is her striking physical appearance; stark white hair and skin, and jet black eyes. Being mute her condition and background remains a mystery, but when a black blind man arrives to collect her from the hospital Martin learns that she is a prostitute and that he is her pimp.
It should have been the last Martin saw of Ivory, but he finds that he is haunted by her look, she has stoked the embers of his creativity and he realizes he must paint her. He seeks her out in London’s streets of vice, facing dangers of this world and another, pursuing an obsession that he learns has led to the deaths of countless others before him.
You can learn more and download either or both of these titles here: Steve Merrifield
